The AFL gets underway, another manager option

The Arizona Fall League kicked off on Tuesday afternoon. The team that the Cincinnati Reds prospects are on didn’t begin their play until late on Tuesday night, though. With a 6:35pm local start, that meant a 9:35pm start here in the Eastern Time Zone.

Scottsdale lost 4-3 on the night. Taylor Trammell and Alfredo Rodriguez got starts on opening night. Trammell played left field, hit and went 0-3 with a walk and an RBI ground out. Rodriguez started at shortstop, hit 9th, and went 0-3 with a walk. None of the Reds four pitchers made an appearance in the game for the Scorpions. Scottsdale will take the field again tonight at 9:35pm ET.

The Reds interview Pirates bench coach Tom Prince

The Cincinnati Reds have reportedly interviewed Pittsburgh Pirates bench coach Tom Prince for their open managerial job. The 54-year-old played in parts of 17 Major League seasons from 1987-2003 for the Pirates, Dodgers, Phillies, Twins, and Royals. The catcher only got 100+ plate appearances in five of those seasons, serving mostly as a backup, or third catcher during his career.

Almost immediately following his playing career he jumped into managing at the minor league level with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He took over duties as the manager of Lynchburg around midseason during the 2004 season. The next eight seasons he coached rookie-level teams for the Pirates before spending the 2013 season as a minor league coordinator. He returned as a manager in 2014 and 2015 by taking over in Bradenton and Altoona. In his career as a manager he went 434-407. In 2016 he served as the Pirates Minor League Field Coordinator before joining the Pirates in 2017 as their bench coach.

Tom Prince is now the 11th person that has been named in the Cincinnati Reds managerial search. He joins the list with Brad Ausmus, David Bell, Joe Girardi, Hensley Meulens, and Charlie Montoyo as outside of the organization interviews. Internally the Reds have also interviewed Freddie Benavides, John Farrell, Billy Hatcher, Pat Kelly, and Jim Riggleman.

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20 Responses

Another name in the hat. Another name to not be thrilled about. Not moving the interest needle at all with most of these 11 names. Of all the teams needing to hire a new manager, the Reds will be the one team that hires the worst one out of this process.
There are 2 or 3 names that move the needle just a bit, while 8 don’t move it at all.
The Reds are almost there in becoming one of the most boring and lackluster teams in all of professional sports. Castellini will move the Reds to Las Vegas within the next 4 years with the promise of a new retractable roof stadium.
Since people bet on red or black, the Las Vegas Reds would be a natural fit. Castellini is taking a page out of the script for the movie Major League. Tanking to move the team to a more profitable locale.

Not trying to be a jerk here but honestly who do you want the Reds to interview to make you happy. I honestly don’t have a preference because I can’t even pretend to know anything about these rando bench coach’s or front office guys and I also don’t think Jesus could win with the pitching staff as it currently is. So this whole managerial search is more just mehhhhh to me. But I see a lot of negative posts pretty much everywhere so I guess I really just want to know what person would make people happy as the Reds next manager. Just curious.

JayJay, tell me which team in this years playoffs, other than Cleveland and Chicago, that created a flood of fan enthusiasm due to the hiring of their current Manager. Most hired a guy like David Bell and Tom Prince. Heck the headline after Sparky Anderson was hired was “Sparky Who”. looks to me like the Front Office is doing due diligence to find a good fit.

I think Farrell was probably the only guy internally that they’ve been seriously considering from that internal list. But, you bring in the others in case that they’ve got something to say that jumps out at you. It’s a different environment than being the third base coach or the bench coach, or whatever.

And Farrell is technically an internal candidate but really an external one being he has only been with the Reds for one year in a limited role as a scout. It’s hard to handicap who might be the favorite from these interviews so far. I just can’t imagine them hiring Riggleman so I would say Farrell and Bell close favorites followed by Montoyo and then the rest but who knows.

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